Lagardère Sports and Entertainment has launched Lagardère Plus, a global agency with a mission to ‘transform traditional brand sponsorships into highly inventive and impactful marketing platforms’.
The new agency incorporates Lagardère Sports and Entertainment’s existing global consulting businesses, including agencies akzio! and Zaechel Int in Germany, and Sponsorship 360 in France, all of which will be rebranded as Lagardère Plus. According to a release from Lagardère, it will add new strategic, creative, digital and analytics capabilities and move beyond Lagardère Sports and Entertainment’s long-established strength in the worlds of sports and entertainment, connecting clients to partnership opportunities of all kinds.
Lagardère previously operated the Velothon cycling event brand and a number of International Triathlon Union (ITU) World Triathlon Series events, as well as a number of mass participation events, such as the Hamburg Marathon, among others. This event portfolio was sold to IRONMAN (Wanda Sports) in January 2016.
Since departing the endurance sport event organisation space in 2016, Lagardère has forged ahead with its broader sports portfolio. Most recently, Lagardère has built a partnership with Super League Triathlon, where it has a partnership around media production and distribution, initially focusing on the Super League Jersey event.
The new Lagardère Plus agency sees the organisation step up a gear as a brand sponsorship, engagement and partner marketing specialist.
“From sports, music and entertainment, to culinary and cause marketing, Lagardère Plus will help brands and properties get the attention they need in a distracted world,” said Andrew Georgiou, Chief Executive Officer, Lagardère Sports and Entertainment. “As media fragmentation affects many of the marketing channels that CMOs have relied on for decades, partnership marketing becomes absolutely vital for brands to connect with their audiences. Lagardère Plus combines global expertise and experience with highly knowledgeable local teams to deliver exceptional results.”
With established offices in Berlin, Dallas, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Hong Kong, London, Manchester, Munich, New York, Paris, Singapore, Shanghai and Tokyo, Lagardère Plus comes to market with a roster of blue-chip clients who are ‘highly active in the partnership marketing space’, including BMW, Bridgestone, Citibank, Danone, EA Sports, Epson, Hyundai, Lacoste, MetLife, MetroPCS, Veuve Clicquot, and ZTE.
Along with Andrew Georgiou, Lagardère Plus will be led by its global consulting team, including Andrew Pierce, Global President; Jonathan Isaac, Chief Strategy Officer; Kern Egan, President, Americas; Tim Frith, Head of Consulting in the UK.; Hervé Bodinier, Executive General Manager in France; Olaf Bauer, Managing Director in Germany; and Malcolm Thorpe, Vice President, Business Development in Singapore.
Lagardère Plus will ‘continue to explore strategic acquisitions in key global markets to deliver ever more impactful partnership marketing’. And as part of that effort, it has acquired Brave, a London-based agency with a track record in developing and delivering creative campaigns for global brands including Amazon Prime, Brown Forman and Greenpeace.
Lagardère Sports and Entertainment is a leading sport and entertainment agency. It has more than 1,700 employees worldwide and 50 years of experience in sport. Lagardère Plus, part of Lagardère Sports and Entertainment, is positioned as a global agency with a mission to ‘transform traditional brand sponsorships into highly inventive and impactful marketing platforms’.
www.lagardere-plus.com
www.lagardere-se.com
